Friday, June 26, 2009

Secret Garden: chapter 3

Yes, the yard keeps blooming and all sorts of things have been popping up - or finally blooming anyway. The fruits are growing and ripening too - such a wonderful time of year!

After waiting for months (it seemed) our peonies finally bloomed, two big bushes of pink and one of white.

Our kitalpa tree suddenly burst into bloom last weekend. It is a sight to see.

As promised, here is a picture of our rose bush in full bloom.

One of the few flowers we purchased, but we just had to have nasturtiums!

Yet another mystery flower. This is more of a vine and I've found it curling up a fence in the back, and one in the front. Anyone know what it is?

Solomon's Seal. We've just got this one, but there are several false Solomon's Seal around too. I've seen some better ones, as far as all the bell-like flowers hanging off it. Perhaps it will be better next year.

Is this the infamous Bellflower? Or something else entirely? I'm not sure. It's probably another "weed," but I think it's lovely (even though it's growing behind our garage).

And now for the aforementioned fruits. Our raspberries have been growing and I just saw today that some are starting to look like this!

Our cherries have been growing bigger and turning red. Some of them feel like they might be ripe - I'm not sure when to pick them. Most people who come by the house pick one to try - and then pucker up like they've bitten into a lemon. These are definitely sour pie cherries!

With all this greenery come bugs and insects of all kinds, very colorful too. I've seen monarchs flying around many days now, after our milkweeds.

9 comments:

I think the purple one looks a little familiar, could it be deadly nightshade? We have this in our backyard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_nightshade you have to be careful with it around kids because it is highly toxic. I don't know the effect on chickens, though.

Yep, that is creeping bellflower (the tall purple one) sorry I don't know how to embed the link here... butI will post it anyway http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/min/images/2008/07/06/creeping_bell_flower.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/min/purple/&usg=__YpbDdXMJXBe9Zv74ZasVSwED-RU=&h=490&w=500&sz=58&hl=en&start=20&sig2=O17rzkXV8MUJQyj5h2DTzA&um=1&tbnid=TehNWjC3Z8hWzM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dweeds%2Bwith%2Bpurple%2B%2Bbell%2Bflowers%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1&ei=wPJESumyKpi4sgPv8eX1DQ

Great pics. I wish I had a catalpa tree - my childhood home had two of them - with a swing in between for me. I used to love playing with the long seed pods - I think we pretended they were cigars most of the time!

Hi Kathi - I've grown to like the Kitalpa too. I suddenly see them all over the place (now that I know what they are). They are some of the most fantastic, large trees - excellent for climbing and swings. Unfortunately, I don't know if we can keep it. They get to be huge and we already have so many trees in the yard. I can't imagine how they're all surviving in such a tiny space. Many of the trees are only a foot or two away from each other.

Yep, it's nightshade. Once I finally figured out what it looked like, it was incredible how much of it I found! I hope I got rid of it all because we really want to let the girls out of the chicken coop this year.

Your Homesteader

This is the blog formerly known as “Northwest Meets Midwest,” where I shared about the absurdities and adventures of living in the Midwest (having moved here from the Northwest). But really, this blog has been more and more a story of how we’ve fallen into urban farming and homesteading. So read on and enjoy our adventures in canning, preserving, mushroom-growing, local/organic fanaticism, chicken raising, designing and constructing, sewing, and attempting a little self-sufficiency in our corner of Minneapolis.